When I come back upstairs with a giant pizza box and two huge bags of food, loaded down with what Geno calledall the necessities for seduction, Drew hasn’t moved. She’s still at the counter, sipping her wine and watching the door.
As soon as I enter, she pops out of her seat and rushes over to help, but I shake my head.
“I’ve got it. I promise I can carry Italian food safely. I wouldn’t dare commit the cardinal sin of dropping it.”
The smile that lifts the corners of her mouth is too fucking beautiful for words. It gives me all sorts of ideas about where tonight is going, and every single one of them is going to be fucking amazing.
I haven’t felt this way about a woman in years. Maybe ever.
Something about Drew Carson is different, and if I were fatalistic enough to believe like my mother, I’d say the universe sent her to me for a reason.
“At least let me take the box, and not just because I want to steal a slice. God, this smellsamazing.”
“Geno knows his shit. He’s been cooking since he was eight years old, if you believe his stories, which I do,” I tell Drew as I settle the bags on the counter.
“That’s pretty impressive,” she says.
“Yeah, but he’s not the best businessman, which is why he got into trouble with his former landlord.”
“How long ago did you buy the building?”
“This one? About eight years ago, when I was ...” I pause, not sure if I want to talk about Creighton and why I no longer work for him.
“You were ...” Drew prompts me as she glances up from the dozen containers now lining the counter.
“I was working for Creighton Karas.”
She presses her lips together for a beat before speaking. “You mentioned that. How’d you go from working for him to running the club?”
I unearth plates and plasticware from Geno’s bags and set them on the counter in front of two stools before meeting her gaze and deciding to take a risk. Whatever she does with the information is going to tell me more than my gut will.
“I got fired for feeding information to Dom.”
This time, Drew’s eyes go wide. “What?”
“Creighton and I are half brothers, except he didn’t know it and I did. Dom sent me to school to make friends with him. Become his right-hand man. As long as I reported back to Dom about everything, I had it made. Easy street.”
“What happened?” Drew looks up from opening a container of manicotti.
I meet her brown gaze and wish I could see the true color. “Eventually, I got sick of lying to someone I cared about.” The statement is pointed as hell, and if I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to her. Then I remember that I saidno more heavy shit tonight, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. “Anyway, it’s all in the past. Let’s eat. I promise this is some of the best Italian you’ll have in the city. Maybe the planet.”
I grab the bottle of wine to refill her glass. Drew is silent beside me, but I swear to Christ I can feel her open her mouth again and again, as though she wants to speak but can’t bring herself to do it.
At least knowing she wants to tell me why she’s lying to me is something.
Maybe I am just like my mom. Willing to settle for scraps.
The thought sends a bolt of anger through me.
No.No, I will not fucking settle for scraps. But I will take my time finding out what I need to know. Drew Carson is going to come clean and tell me all her secrets. She will.
Because deep down, I want to believe she’s battling the same demons I was with Creighton—fighting the lies and wanting to tell the truth even more.
37
Drew
“Did Geno think I was secretly a competitive eater, because holy crap, we barely put a dent in what he sent up,” I say thirty minutes later as I stare at the massive amount of food still left between us.How did Geno think we could possibly eat all of it?